


Dark Messenger

by Anefi



Series: Mysterious Chunks of Space Debris [3]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Soup, Gen, Verity meets some Decepticons AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:22:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26030347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anefi/pseuds/Anefi
Summary: Verity was in a police station, leg bouncing, stomach churning, waiting to be booked, when the craziest thing happened: something went her way.The fact that her deliverance was an accident, a total coincidence? That was easy to believe. The fact that she owed her escape to a rebel alien space robot? Well.That was actually pretty cool.
Series: Mysterious Chunks of Space Debris [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663726
Comments: 22
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title and series title from this Mountain Goats song! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4CfG7cKmfk

Verity fit her fingers to the ring of bruises around her wrist and pressed down. For a moment, it was a distraction. The cops had taken everything—her bag with all her stuff, her knife and phone and stash of cash cards, her really nice fake ID—and she wasn’t getting any of it back. By any reckoning, it was a disaster. Her leg started jumping again. Harsh fluorescent lights buzzed loud in the windowless cement-brick room. A few hours in, there were just a handful of others left shivering with her on the hard slat wood benches, watched over by two cameras and a guard by the door reading a newspaper that rattled in the breeze from the air conditioning. Verity sat there and her leg bounced and her stomach churned and the tension pulling at the strained muscles in her shoulder ratcheted up every time there were footsteps or voices in the hall outside, and she pressed on her bruises like the pain could drown out the dread.

The only other door out of the holding room was solid metal, locked and barred and undoubtedly alarmed, and Verity did not want to go that way. She didn’t look at it. Instead, she watched the open door, the hallway beyond, and imagined increasingly unlikely scenarios that might culminate in a successful escape. Earthquake might be the most likely—she hadn’t been in California long, but it had to happen sometime, right? Anything that set off the fire alarm would give her a chance. Meteor through the roof. She had her fingers crossed for a meteor through the roof. Two right turns down the hallway, then a left, and there had been a room with a table and chairs and an open window—

When the lights flickered with a distant crash and the alarms started wailing, there was a moment of total, blank disconnect. Then the sharp sting of her arm pulled her back into the moment, and Verity was up, off the bench, across the room, and in the hallway before the guard finished fumbling for his radio. There was shouting behind her, and newspaper flying everywhere in a rattling cloud after she snagged it as she dove past. Another corner, and the hallway was full of hanging white masonry dust. Her boots shrieked on the tile as she careened around the last left, and that’s when she full-on collided with half a ton of sharp, smoking metal still shaking off bits of concrete. She landed on her ass like she’d run into a wall, a _stabby_ wall, and the thing—like a moving sculpture, it was so weird—it kind of staggered, big metal-feathered wings scraping against the cement block walls—because she’d run into a wing, it had _wings_ —but it didn’t even notice her, lurching instead into the room she’d been aiming for, and she hesitated a moment to follow, but there were shouts coming from both ways down the hallway now, so she held her sleeve over her mouth to stifle her coughing and ducked after it.

Inside the room, there was no sign of the weird experimental police drone or whatever, but the window was still open. Two laptops on the table, and maybe she should have left it, but, what, like she was going to be in more trouble? The closest one went under her sweatshirt and she eeled out the window, straight into a hedge. She tore out of the clutching branches and lit out across the lawn, scraped and bruised, heart pounding, muscles aching, but free, free and running.

She turned around only once, to check for pursuers, but she was clear—and she was doubly lucky, because she had just the right angle to see the giant hole in the roof, red tiles cracked and blackened, wisps of smoke and dust stretching up into the sky. She saved that mental picture to treasure.

Aside from the police station, it was a pretty good town. Rich enough to have a street or two of shops that weren’t just strip malls, with people walking around and boxes of flowers on the sidewalks, but not so rich that she stood out in a denim skirt and boots and leggings, once she shook off the dust and got the twigs out of her hair. A stroll through the early-morning crowd and their pockets—there was a _farmer’s market_ , score another one for California—and she’d picked up a jacket and enough cash for coffee and sandwiches and a tote bag with the local café’s name on it. Usually she’d be happy to camp out anywhere with free wi-fi for a few hours, but how stupid would it be to get picked up by the cops again, after such a beautiful, flawless escape? She wasn’t done running yet. If she could keep making luck like this, she never would be.

So long, Chico. Chino? Whatever. She was on a bus, and she was gone.

By mid-afternoon, after an hour on one creaking bus and two on another with cheerful sunlight glinting off an ocean of cars, the adrenaline had worn off and she was stiff and sore and beyond ready to crash. One place was as good as any other when she didn’t know any of it, so when she spotted a bridge over a dry creek screened by trees, she hopped out at the next stop and trudged back to see if it was taken. There was a park along one side with some kind of jogging track, but the loose rocks and scattered trash in the alcove under the street seemed unwelcoming enough that she shouldn’t have to deal with locals. It was okay. Safe enough. Fine. Tucked up under the road on the cold ground, with the intermittent growl of cars overhead, Verity let herself have a minute to wrap her arms around her legs, put her head down, and squeeze her eyes shut tight. Tomorrow, she’d start over. No big deal. She’d done it before. She’d have to be smarter about picking spots. And hiding her stuff. And she’d start keeping a backup cash card in her shoe. It would be fine.

When she looked up again, the rocky alcove was noticeably dimmer, flecks of sun that broke through the maze of tree branches stretched out across the dusty ground. After half a sandwich and a little bit of water, she felt better.

The laptop she’d grabbed had been a weight in her tote bag all day. When she pulled it out, it was warmer than she expected, almost humming. Verity bit her lip. If the battery was running down, she’d have to find either a power cord to keep it alive long enough to be sanitized or a _very_ chill fence. The case was hard black metal, matte, and faintly textured, when she ran her finger across a stylized purple design on the top. Not a brand she recognized. A nice custom job, maybe. A little pinprick of concern remembered what else she had seen that morning, and hoped this wasn’t like, a control station for any weird new high-tech enforcement technology, because that really would give them a reason to hunt her down, and she’d never be able to sell it.

Only one way to find out.

When she slid her thumb to the front of the laptop to crack it open, it resisted, like it was stuck. She checked for a lock. Nothing but an angry red status light, and no place for a key or thumbprint, either. Frowning, she tried again. It flew open, and leapt out of her hands, and halfway through reaching for it in a panic, she recoiled. Instead of clattering on the ground, it unfolded, and unfolded _again_ , sheets and plates of black and blood-red metal impossibly unfurling like those four-sided paper fortune tellers but _huge_ and then a _leg_ shot out with _talons_ and oh shit, oh _shit_ , it was the thing from the police station, _she’d stolen the police robot_ , she was the dumbest person who ever _lived_.

Two wings emerged from the flurry of metal, and another leg, and a snaking, vulture-like head with a wickedly curved beak. It snapped around to look at her, staggering back on the sloped scree, and hiss with an ugly scream of static. She was scrambling away too, but stuck under the bridge, and she didn’t scream because she was too busy desperately sucking air, but the closest thing that she could find to a weapon was a _rock_ , so she was fucking _dead_.

“Stay back,” she said, hefting the rock, in case she got to make a futile gesture of resistance.

The thing hopped awkwardly, one wing snapping out as long as she was tall, the other—bent, at an angle that looked like it wasn’t supposed to be. It swung its head to look at her with one eye at a time, glowing red like brake lights over the deadly sharp beak, which opened. “S—stay back,” it copied, in what almost sounded like a recording of her voice, but high and afraid.

The bird-gargoyle-robot flinched at the sound of a car overhead, tracking its passage with evil red eyes, hissing and staggering again. The long neck whipped around to target her again. “Stay back,” it repeated.

“I’m staying!” she said. No problem _there_. She held up her hands to prove it. “I’m staying right here!”

The working wing hunched up, metal plates like feathers spiking up as if to make it look bigger— _unnecessary_ —and the long neck curved in. “Stay back,” it said again in her voice, red eyes glinting.

They stared at each other. Verity’s palms stung where she’d scraped them.

“What the hell,” she said. “Why would they build a giant metal shape-changing bird robot to arrest people?” Some conspiracy nuts she knew would have a heart attack over a picture of this thing. Secret government technology for sure. But. “That makes no sense.”

Still watching her, the thing’s head cocked, almost like it was listening.

She looked at the broken wing, and thought about the cloud of concrete dust and rubble in the hallway of the police station. The hole in the roof. “You crashed,” she said slowly, piecing it together. “You didn’t belong there either. You wanted to hide. You turned into a laptop. You _pretended_ to be a laptop. And then—fuck, I carried you around for like, hours? I bought a tote bag to carry you around. How could—you’re _huge_. What the hell. What kind of technology is that?”

This time when the beak opened, Verity winced at the high-pitched scribbling noise that came out, like a record scratch stretched over ten seconds. The thing shook its head, then leaned down, one eye trained on her, and reached up a clawed foot to its throat, and did something that caused a shot of red light and a shower of sparks.

“You seem kind of busted,” Verity noted. The robot’s visible eye seemed to narrow at her—in irritation? “And like. Really expressive. For a robot bird.” Responsive. Smooth, natural movements. Could it be autonomous? It certainly didn’t feel like there was anybody out there with a remote, controlling its actions. That was stupid, though. It had to be like. Animatronic. Like some kind of movie set robot. But then, that would mean somebody was out there, directing it, just to fuck with her.

And it _turned into a laptop_.

The magic transforming robot bird made a sound remarkably like a cough and spat more sparks. Its head lifted and looked right at her. “Yeah, I crashed and hid,” it said, in a voice modulated somewhere between Verity’s own voice and a bad text-to-speech codec. “You think I look like a front liner? I just wanted to get out.”

It took a moment for Verity to pick her jaw up off the ground. “Uh. No, sure. I get that. Me, too.”

“Right,” it said. The broken wing twitched. Its eyes narrowed to burning slits. “I guess I should thank you for the lift.”

Verity’s involuntary laugh was sort of high and hysterical.

“You make a habit of jumping out of windows with stuff that isn’t yours?” As if the situation could get any more surreal. The robot she accidentally nabbed was _judging_ her for stealing it.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

The robot’s head jerked, and it started an abrasive, static-y sound that was downright alarming until Verity figured out that it was laughing, too.

“I think we’re even,” she offered with a manic grin. “I wouldn’t have gotten out of there if you hadn’t brought half the roof down first.”

The trade was accepted with a sinuous bob of its metal head. The robo-bird settled back on its—feet. Talons? She didn’t know anything about birds, except how loud they could be in the morning when you slept outside. Sharp claws dug into the red earth, kicking up a cloud of fine dust that hung suspended in the air. Its good wing folded in along its back, textured metal plates reshuffling in a wave, remarkably like feathers. It looked around, taking in the bare ground and scattered trash in the dry creek bed, the ragged lines of trees blocking the sides of their makeshift shelter. “So,” it said. “You live here?”

Verity shrugged. “For tonight.” She dropped her eyes to her new tote bag and started smoothing it out.

A scratching click. “Diurnal,” the robot muttered, which had Verity looking up sharply—to see it start climbing the embankment toward her little perch tucked under the road. She scrambled away, but it was next to her in a few hopping steps, shockingly fast despite the broken wing still held out awkwardly to the side.

“What are you doing!” she yelped.

It glanced at her, then tossed its head as it turned around and hunkered down companionably in her little alcove. “I gotta fix my wing,” it said. “You’re going to re—to sleep, right?”

Verity wasn’t sure she would ever sleep again. “Uh.”

“I’ll watch out while you power down, and you can carry me around some more tomorrow,” it said. This close, in its—expanded?—form, it was huge and vaguely warm, a dry, electric heat, quietly humming and ticking like—like nothing she’d ever seen before. Like nothing else in the world.

She wasn’t sure she could really say no. She didn’t think she’d ever forgive herself if she tried. “Sure,” she said warily. “I’m not going to do anything to get arrested again.” It synthesized a high bleep of acknowledgement and another grating huff of laughter without looking up. Hunched over, biting at the underside of its wing, the same red light as before flickered, punctuated by showers of sparks and the smell of an auto shop. She watched the robot out of the corner of her eye, and then more directly, as it continued to deliberately ignore her. Filtered sunlight dimmed and faded around them. Cars rumbling overhead were more and more sporadic. “Hey,” Verity said. “You got a name?”

The sinuous neck curled around until they were eye to eye. Burning red glittered like glass, with rings and layers of color and intensity that focused and dilated as they scanned her. Small moving parts and dimly pulsing lights showed between tiny gaps in the outer metal plates, like the insides of a server, or a watch.

“My mouth is a weapon, my voice a cataclysm,” it said, and snapped its beak with a sound like sharp scissors when Verity just stared. “You can call me Laserbeak.”

When someone gave you a name, you gave yours, so, “I’m Verity. Verity Carlo,” Verity said. To Laserbeak. Laserbeak? _Laserbeak_. What the hell kind of a name was Laserbeak.

Laserbeak’s head cocked, and its—their? Eyes went unfocused for a second of stillness. “One who is truly free,” they said— _translated_ , Verity realized. “Too bad you’re organic. That’s a good Decepticon name.”

“What’s a Decepticon,” Verity asked, because increasingly pressing questions like _what they hell are you_ and _who made you_ and _do you think in like, binary_ seemed like they might be, possibly, _rude_.

Laserbeak scanned her with another assessing gaze. “It’s been a while since I heard that one,” they said. “Okay, so, back on my planet—”

All of Verity’s spinning thoughts abruptly derailed and were replaced by new ones. “You’re an _alien?_ ”

Laserbeak just squinted at her. Verity put her hands over her face. “Of course, you’re an alien. _Of course_. That makes—so much more sense. Holy shit. Sorry. Go on.”

Laserbeak’s totally, _unquestionably alien_ red eyes flickered and reset. “Wait,” they said. “Did you seriously—you thought someone on this dirt ball _built_ me?”

Verity’s scream was muffled by her hands. “I don’t know! Secret government technology seemed more likely than _alien invader!”_

“We’re not _invading_ —lucky for you—”

“There’s a whole planet of—of—bird robots? That turn into laptops? How is that _more_ likely—”

Raspy, crackling laughter was shaking Laserbeak’s whole frame.

“Oh, sure, laugh it up!” Verity said. “Just because nobody of my _species_ has ever met someone from another planet before—”

“This system really is on the dark end of nowhere,” Laserbeak wheezed. “Rust me, you don’t know _anything_.”

“Yeah, okay, so tell me,” Verity said, and after another minute to calm down, Laserbeak started again.

“Okay,” they said. “So, my planet—most people weren’t like me. More like you, actually, which is pretty weird—legs and arms. Jets have arms, legs, and wings, I guess, but not wings like mine. Anyway.” Laserbeak checked to make sure Verity was following, and she wasn’t really, but she nodded anyway. “We all turn into stuff. Most of us. It used to be that whatever you turned into when you were new, that’s all you were, forever, unless you were rich. If you turned into something fancy, or even normal, you were set, but the rest of us—we got slag or got slagged, you know?”

“Sure,” Verity said, because it seemed like some stuff, unfortunately, was universal. “So you’re like, a refugee?”

“Frag no,” Laserbeak scoffed. “A bunch of us got together, took over some cities, and killed the Senate. That’s how the Decepticons started. We’re still fighting these religious skidplates who liked the old way—the Autobots—but we can go anywhere we want, now. Anywhere in the galaxy.”

Verity blinked a few times. Laserbeak’s eyes and internal lights seemed to grow brighter in the deepening gloom. “That sounds cool,” she said cautiously. Violent, maybe— _Laserbeak_ —but who was she to judge? They’d overthrown an oppressive caste system for an entire planet. “But, wait, if you can go anywhere—why here? Why Earth?”

Laserbeak looked away. When they spoke again, their voice was quieter, and Verity leaned in. “We’re looking for someone,” they said. “He’s been gone a long while, and most people think he’s dead. My—” Laserbeak seemed to stumble. “My boss,” they decided, “My boss thinks he might be here.”

“A friend of yours?”

“Our leader,” Laserbeak said. “The great balance, the instrument of reckoning. Megatron.”

She had been getting used to the way Laserbeak talked, the strange modulations and frequencies on the edge of hearing, but for some reason, the raw, mechanical harmonics of that name made Verity shiver.


	2. where the asphalt sprouts

Verity did have to sleep, desperately, no matter how her mind was whirling; eventually, the demands of her body won out, and she pulled her new grey jacket tight around her and curled up on the ground. Most of her fitful dreams involved running, hiding, or both—since she didn’t get enough of that in the real world—and, too often, grinding her teeth. She felt disgusting when she woke up, gritty and sore, but the smell of dust and leaves welcomed her to the morning, along with a racket of birds and the echoing rumble of cars.

Then she remembered.

She sat up in a rush, but Laserbeak was still there, watching her like a buzzard trying to figure out if a patch of roadkill was still twitching. No more sparks; their wings were both tucked close.

“Hey,” Verity said. “Get your wing fixed?”

“It’s fine,” Laserbeak said shortly. Verity heard that invitation to mind her own business, loud and clear, and held her hands up before turning away to dig a bottle of water out of her bag. “Can’t fly on it yet,” Laserbeak admitted, like it was dragged out.

Verity swished some water around in her mouth to fight the filmy feeling, and drank a little more while she thought it out. Most mechanical things, if you fixed it, it was fixed—but she didn’t want to touch another nerve. So to speak. “Do you need, like, a hardware store? Screws or something?”

Laserbeak threw her a look that was maybe a little insulted, and one metal wing sort of half-flapped in her direction. “If one of us has a screw loose, it’s not me,” they said, and Verity laughed. Both wings resettled, feather-plates shuffling almost silently. Laserbeak leaned over and nudged something towards Verity with their deadly sharp beak.

Two things, actually; Verity picked them up and turned them over in her hands. “Are these ear buds?”

“They’re wireless communicators. Don’t tell me I have to explain to you your own primitive technology.”

“I’m just curious how you got them, since the normal place would be a store.” On closer inspection, the set appeared to be two right earpieces, slightly different models, one stained a little with red dust. She hoped it was dust.

“Found ’em,” Laserbeak said, with a jerk of their head toward the park and jogging trail.

“Nice.” She looked at the reddish stain, and worried her bottom lip between her teeth. She snuck a look at the alien monster robot that had evidently decided, sometime in the night, to bring her something shiny like a giant, metal crow. “You didn’t have to mug anyone, right?”

“It’s cute how you think _you_ have to lecture _me_ about covert ops,” Laserbeak said. “I’ve been a spy for longer than you’ve had _language_.” That lined up all kinds of new questions that Verity wasn’t touching. She was nineteen, almost twenty, so—how long did robots live, anyway? Was Laserbeak _old?_

She fell back on teasing, instead of asking, because some instincts could never be overridden. “Surely you can forgive my skepticism. I mean, considering how we met—”

“That doesn’t count,” Laserbeak snapped, and Verity had to grin at the way her metal feathers fluffed up. Laserbeak gestured at the earbuds again with her beak. “Put those wherever your audials are. They’re set to my comm code, you’re welcome.”

“Does that mean we can talk when you’re—” she outlined a box shape with her hands.

“In alt mode. For tactical coordination only.”

“Huh, that’s cool. Thanks.” Verity slipped one earpiece in and tucked the other into a pocket in her jacket.

“Whatever,” Laserbeak said, but they seemed pleased.

It was pretty fascinating to watch Laserbeak contort and fold and compress from someone Verity had been basically hanging out with down to just a laptop again. In bird form, Laserbeak was constantly ticking with subtle signs of life even when they were still, small twitches and whirs, while the laptop left sitting on the ground was just—still humming a little, like it was thinking about something, but—it was such a _thing_. It was crazy to think there was a whole _person_ in there. She might never be able to look at a computer the same way again.

There wasn’t any kind of button on the ear thing, as far as she could tell. “Uh. Testing,” she said to the empty air.

“Tactical coordination only,” Laserbeak repeated. “Let’s go.”

Verity picked up the laptop, dusted it off automatically before it occurred to her that it might be weird, and hurriedly stuffed Laserbeak back in her tote bag.

“Here’s a tactical question,” Verity said, “How do you get so much smaller when you change shape?”

There was a little click in her earpiece, acknowledging the question while Laserbeak thought about answering, which was a nice feature. “If you’re asking me to explain subspace mass-displacement technology, I’ll tell you right now, that ain’t happening. Something about pocket dimensions. I was never interested.”

 _Pocket dimensions_. Verity experienced a moment of unreality, clambering out from under the bridge, tugging her boot free from a bush as she broke out into the park, where normal people were walking and jogging under the early morning clouds with no idea there were alien robots on the planet shoving themselves into pocket dimensions and hacking phone accessories. “You don’t think about how it works? Where the rest of you goes?”

“I don’t know, do you think about keeping all your fluids pressurized? I just integrated a subroutine when I was modified, and unless I get reconfigured or something, it gets called up when I need it.”

“You ever worry that you won’t be able to get big again?”

Another click. “Well, now I have. Thanks for _that_.”

Laserbeak was cagey about what exactly the plan was – the alien agenda, as it were – as far as looking for Megatron, so Verity was just going to do her own thing and get back on the bus like she didn’t have an entire sentient extraterrestrial tucked up in a bag under her arm, emanating warmth through the canvas weave.

By the end of the afternoon, A few stops, a few wallets, and a few stores later, Verity had the essentials: soap and toiletries, some extra socks and underwear, a couple shiny new gift cards purchased on credit that wasn’t hers, and a whole box of day-old pastry. She still needed a phone, pretty badly, but, well, one of _those_ wasn’t going to fall from the sky. Probably. But for the second day back in business, it wasn’t bad at all. Halfway up a grassy hill in a patch of green between three crooked streets, she dropped her bag from her aching shoulder and folded to the ground in the shade of a gnarled tree.

“Watch it,” Laserbeak complained.

“Mmph,” Verity said, muffled by the arm thrown over her face.

Laserbeak had been grumbling whenever Verity stuffed something new in the tote bag; they seemed to, incorrectly, regard it as annexed robot territory. “If we’re just going to sit here, then let me out.”

“Sure thing.” She dragged herself upright reached over—and hesitated. “You’re not going to change back, right? This isn’t a great place to be a huge bird.”

“Obviously. Come on.” Verity rolled her eyes, but did as requested. She supposed she wouldn’t like being cooped up all day and carted around in a sack. “In the sunlight,” Laserbeak directed.

Verity scooted over a few feet and laid out the tote bag first, so the laptop wouldn’t be sitting on the grass. “Your majesty.”

Laserbeak responded to that with a grinding noise through the earpiece speaker that sounded rude.

Since she’d already made the effort to sit up again, Verity pulled out a bottle of water, cracked open the box of pastry, and started working through a cheese Danish. For a few quiet minutes, they watched traffic and pedestrians trickle along in discordant flows. Or, Verity did. She didn’t know what Laserbeak was doing.

“Datanet access on this planet is terrible.”

Well, she’d been wondering whether Laserbeak had like, wifi. “Most people have to pay for it, too,” she agreed.

They lapsed into silence while Verity finished the Danish and picked up a doughnut. “This can’t be right,” Laserbeak said. “According to your datanet, humans need to eat _every_ day?”

Verity choked on powdered sugar.

“Look at this! You’re not even good at it.”

Verity was wheezing too hard to argue.

“ _Three_ times a day? What kind of scrap efficiency—"

By the time Verity had her breathing under control, Laserbeak was still grumbling, something about the financial system being all electronic. Unwisely, Verity assumed it was a non-sequitur, and went back to her donut with a little more caution. “Do you eat anything? Like, I don’t know, iron filings? Or are you solar powered?” she asked.

“I don’t know anyone who has to eat _three_ times a day.”

Verity rolled her eyes.

“I’m pretty efficient, but this star isn’t great. I’ll need to find fuel in—probably a week or so.”

Was it weird to be kind of jealous? Sometimes Verity felt like she spent half her life worrying about food. And the other half finding good places to sleep. “And then you’ll need a new battery? A tank of butane? Give me a hint, here. Tactical coordination.”

“I can refine pretty much anything combustible,” Laserbeak said. “It’ll probably just taste like slag.”

“Alright, cool, we’ll see what we can find.” It had been years since Verity had driven a car or filled one with gas, but she’d heard people complaining about how expensive it was in California. If she and the alien bird-laptop were still hanging out in a week. She kind of hoped they would be; meeting Laserbeak was pretty much the least boring thing to ever happened to her.

A slightly different click sounded in her ear, flatter, like an alert. “Hey, you’re still dodging the enforcers, right?” Laserbeak said a moment later.

“The cops? Definitely. Yes. Pretty much always.”

“The same cruiser that drove by ten minutes ago is about to turn onto this street again.”

“Yup, that’s our cue,” Verity agreed.

She picked up her stuff and Laserbeak and casually booked it across the lawn, slipping back into the stream of pedestrians and the tangle of streets without a ripple.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm decepticon-propaganda on tumblr! Feel free to drop me some prompts, or just say hi :)


End file.
